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Simon-G294
}} and neural therapy. |rank=*Petty Officer Second Class (stripped) * (Covenant remnant) |tag=G294 |servicenumber= |specialty=*Survival *Close quarters combat *Demolitions |sigweapons= |class=III |branch= (former) |unit=*Team Jian (former) *Rat Pack (former) *Lance of Desecrated Virtue |affiliation=* (former) ** (former) *People's Republic of Mamore (former) **Humanity Liberation Front (former) *''Chancer V'' * |era=* * }} When a wolf is cut off from his pack he has no choice but to wander, drifting aimlessly through the harsh wilds. Without the strength of the pack behind him, he must forsake the larger, grander prey for weaker pursuits, surviving off of weakened stragglers and scavenging carrion. The outcast beast continues this lonely existence until his old pack finds and devours him, or until he finds a new pack to call his own. Simon-G294—also known by the pseudonym “Stray”—was a from who was raised and augmented as a child supersoldier during the final years of the . Lambasted as both a coward and the worst-performing Spartan in his company, he gained infamy when he deserted from the and fought for the on . Ultimately betrayed and abandoned by the rebels, he was left with a lasting hatred for both of his former allegiances and found himself selling his skills to the highest bidder as a mercenary in order to survive. Consumed by doubts and self-loathing, he nonetheless possesses a keen survival instinct and boundless tenacity in pursuit of his goals. In spite of his crimes and selfish tendencies, he found lasting companions in the rogue Insurrectionist AI Diana and fellow Gamma deserter Cassandra-G006. After a fruitless effort to score big as a solitary freelancer, Simon found himself hired on to the smuggling freighter Chancer V, which became his new home and base of operations.Term used by Simon when referring to the Chancer; "base of operations" in this sense means "the place where I eat, sleep, and use to keep under ONI's radar, but don't you dare put me on Zoey's level, the jobs I do are way different... most of the time." His status as a fugitive, as well as his penchant for becoming involved in broader galactic affairs, often brought him into conflict with agents of the and , particularly and his former squad, Team Jian. Biography The Urchin "More To Life Than This" In late 2540 on the Inner Colony world of Iskander, a wealthy businessman was discovered in a long-term adulterous affair with one of his estate's cleaning staff. In order to dissuade the anger of his wife, he dismissed his mistress and cut her off from any means of support. Unfortunately, the woman had already borne him one son and was heavily pregnant with another. Unable to gain access to any means of birth control, the now-impoverished Delores Onegin gave birth to another boy, whom she named Simon. At first, Delores did all in her limited power to care for the sickly baby. Mere months after his birth, Simon came down with a fever that brought him to the brink of death. Although local clinicians predicted that he would not survive, the infant Simon recovered against all odds and continued developing at a normal rate. But as the years passed and her financial situation worsened, the maternal love Delores had once felt for Simon faded. Forced to do odd jobs and menial labor to make ends meet, she began resenting her sons and projecting her hatred for their father onto them. Faced with routine stress and emotional abuse, Simon spent most of his time away from his mother's squalid apartment complex as he explored the streets with his older brother Arthur. A clever, inventive boy, Arthur taught Simon to steal wares and credits from local vendors as the two boys took what they could to keep from starving. The young Simon quickly developed a very loose view of law and order, particularly after witnessing Arthur receive beatings from local police patrols. Soon after Simon started running with Arthur, his mother died following several months of illness and heavy drinking. Though the brothers grieved their loss, Dolores's death affected them little in the long run. Left with only each other, they continued to steal and scavenge their way through Thebes's slums. Shortly after Dolores's death, the brothers were approached by a man who claimed to be a local clinician. Calling himself "Toby," the doctor began to routinely check in on the orphaned boys. Following a particularly bad epidemic that swept through the slums the boys lived in, Toby began administering "preventive shots" to Simon without Arthur's knowledge. At first, Simon became extremely sick, but after nearly two weeks of intense fever his suffering subsided and he became well again. When Simon told Arthur what Toby had done, his brother grew furious for reasons that the confused young boy could not understand. The next day, Arthur assaulted Toby in public. Local police quickly intervened; Arthur was arrested and sent to a corrective institution while Simon was declared a ward of the colony and turned over to a colony-run orphanage. Simon did not see Toby again, but unbeknownst to him the "doctor" continued to keep tabs on him even after he'd been taken away. Simon was extremely unhappy in the orphanage, missing both Arthur and the freedom he had felt living with his brother. Nevertheless, the young boy appreciated the security of shelter and regular meals that it provided. He did not get on well with the other children and was often caught stealing and hoarding food. Incidents like these, coupled with the area's low adoption rate, made it seem as if he would merely be cared for until he was old enough to be given back to the streets to fend for himself. This bleak future changed in 2545, when Simon was "interviewed" by an lieutenant who had been dispatched to recruit applicable candidates into the program. Although not taken in by the lieutenant's talk of honor and duty (these concepts hollow and meaningless to him), Simon was swayed by the officer's talk of a brighter future and the enriching nature of the program. Simon agreed to be recruited into and was shipped to a on for training along with several hundred other young children. The Failure "I Won't Go Back" Simon's arrival on Onyx alongside more than three hundred other candidates for the program was met with a test that the man in charge of the program's training division, Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose, had utilized with every batch of candidates since the beginning of the program: a "night jump" from a high-flying Pelican dropship. Simon froze up when it was his turn to jump and was very nearly kicked out of the program on his first night. As he gave up and stepped away from the edge of the Pelican's open troop bay, another child pushed him and he plummeted out of the dropship. Only a hasty opening of the parachute he'd been issued saved him from a messy landing on Onyx's surface. Along with the other children who passed the first test, Simon plunged into an intensive six-year training program that sought to turn the young trainees into Spartan supersoldiers. During the first year of physical conditioning Simon was indistinguishable from the other trainees. His instructors noted that he was one of the faster candidates and he proved to have high levels of endurance during the field exercises the trainees were put through. But as time wore on and the training branched out into more advanced fields such as marksmanship and small unit tactics he fell behind the vast majority of his peers. Lacking the natural talents displayed by many other trainees, Simon found that none of the military training came naturally to him. Frequently punished for his shortcomings, Simon learned to blend in with his peers, avoiding the unwanted attention of Mendez and the other drill instructors. Before long he gained infamy as one of the worst-preforming members of the company. From sparring to weapons training, his performance scores were consistently amongst the lowest of the Spartan trainees. Though he resented some of the top performers for the ease in which they mastered the training, Simon was fairly personable when not under the drill instructors' watchful gazes and formed casual friendships with many of his fellow trainees. Faced with routine punishment and humiliation for his under-performance, Simon adapted by falling back on the cunning and deviousness Arthur had ingrained into him years ago. Unlike the more physically and tactically gifted trainees, Simon turned to more "creative" measures in order to succeed. Though he believed whole-heartedly in the heroic ideals of service and self-sacrifice that were key to the Spartan program's martial doctrine, Simon began employing underhanded tactics that many of his peers balked at. During training exercises he would hide from combat, fake being tagged out or eliminated, and even bribe some of the less conscientious trainees with extra food from stashes of stolen rations that he began setting up throughout Camp Currahee. While often caught and punished by various DIs and occasionally Lieutenant Ambrose himself, Simon was learning a different kind of warfare from the tricks and cheats he used to keep up with the Spartan program: one of adaption and survival. Though some trainees admired Simon for his ingenuity, many more despised his attitude and believed he was not taking the training seriously. Isolated from his peers, Simon spent more and more time alone and often sneaked off into Onyx's wilderness in order to escape the endless military drill and regimentation .Despite his poor reputation amongst both trainees and instructors, Simon found an unlikely mentor in Tom-B292, a SPARTAN-III graduate who had been assigned to help train Gamma Company along with his fellow survivor, . Struck more by Simon's tenacity than by his many failings, Tom took Simon under his wing even when other drill instructors gave up on him. Hungry for acceptance, Simon looked up to Tom as a personal hero despite knowing very little of the Beta Spartan's past. Tom took time to instruct Simon in several fields, particularly close quarters combat. Simon would carry Tom's principles of knife-fighting with him the rest of his life. "Give Me A Chance. Maybe I'll Surprise You" After two years of combat exercises under randomly assigned teams and leaders the Gamma Company trainees were divided into permanent five-person fire teams. These teams would live and train together in order to forge the closely-knit squad families that were the backbone of Spartan battlefield effectiveness. It was inevitable that any potential teammates would dread being saddled with a teammate who would drag their combat scores down, but fortunately for Simon he was not the only problem trainee sorted into Team Jian. Though under the command of Jake-G293, one of the best-performing trainees in the company, the rest of the team consisted of Mary-G130, feared amongst the other trainees for a short temper and casual sadistic streak, Terrence-G150, a kleptomaniac who had been disciplined by both his superiors and his fellow trainees for his thieving habits, and Ralph-G299, a trainee notorious for starting fights and who had antagonized Simon for his shortcomings many times in the past. Jake was less than pleased to be assigned to such a ragtag team (Team Jian quickly gained the nickname of "Problem Squad"), and at first the group's performance was substandard. Team Jian struggled in the months that followed its formation. Constantly outmaneuvered and outperformed by drill instructors and other teams, it seemed as though Jian's flaws and weaknesses would always be dragging it down. But Jake's patient, meticulous style of leadership slowly began to bring the squad together. Simon would never be close to the straightforward and focused Jake, but respected him as both a leader and a highly capable trainee. Though Mary would often blame Simon for Jian's failures, she valued his unorthodox approach to the problems the teams encountered during training and took it upon herself to help him improve his substandard skills. Terrence had often accompanied Simon on ventures to steal food and cared little for the competition and rivalries that were rampant within Camp Currahee, but Ralph despised Simon for his perceived incompetence and the two trainees were often at odds with each other. Jake, meanwhile, found use for Simon's devious tactics,cleverly employing his "failure" teammate in situations where his trickery and cunning would give Jian an advantage without drawing the ire of the drill instructors. Though Jian began to enjoy more success as Jake continued to play each members' strength to their full potential, Simon became even less popular amongst the trainees that were forced to deal with his unique brand of competition. Ralph continued to harbor animosity towards his teammate; when one disgruntled trainee, Galen-G322, cornered Simon and attacked him with a stolen stun baton, Ralph witnessed the beating but did nothing to intervene. Simon endured the brutal attack, earning Galen's grudging admiration, and blamed Ralph for not helping him. Encouraged by Mary to settle things with Ralph, Simon ambushed his teammate in the woods outside of Camp Currahee. Although he was badly beaten in the ensuing brawl, the incident was enough to convince Ralph of his teammate's sincerity and afterwards the two trainees formed an uneasy friendship. The "unified" Team Jian quickly gained a reputation as a band of irreverent troublemakers, much to Jake's chagrin. When another squad, Team Halberd, beat Jian particularly badly during a training exercise, Ralph, Terrence, and Simon collaborated to get back at them by demolishing a latrine on top of Halberd with stolen explosives. Terrence evaded punishment, but Ralph and Simon were severely disciplined. Nevertheless, Jian became known as an unorthodox squad, low in the overall company rankings but not a group to be taken lightly. Though Simon's combat scores remained low, he was no longer afraid of being drummed out of the company. Despite his lack of respect for military customs and courtesies, he was fully committed to his purpose as a Spartan and believed that with the help of his teammates he could do his part in the ongoing war against the Covenant—a conflict that the Spartan trainees were constantly reminded of amidst the daily grind of conditioning and training exercises. Despite the constant demands of Camp Currahee's military environment, Simon and the other children remained spirited and dedicated to their training. Simon harbored some misgivings about how he would perform on the actual battlefield, but was inspired by Tom's continued support and the examples set by the likes of Lieutenant Ambrose, Mendez, and Lucy. Although he kept mainly within the confines of Team Jian, he developed quiet rapports with other trainees such as Dyne-G217. He also took note of another trainee, Cassandra-G006. Like Simon, Cassandra sported relatively poor combat ratings but had made up for her shortcomings by becoming one of Gamma Company's few medical specialists. Simon and Cassandra shared a discrete friendship during the years on Onyx, relating to each other's struggle to distinguish themselves amidst a company full of top performers. About a year before Gamma Company's graduation, the trainees were administered drugs that hurried the onset of puberty within their young bodies. Simon was confused by unusual feelings he began to develop for Cassandra. Worried about what his teammates might think of him and intimidated by his own foreign urges, Simon distanced himself from Cassandra in order to focus his mind on his team. "The Hell Is This Feeling...?" As the time approached for Gamma Company's graduation, Simon's performance continued to lag behind that his peers. Though settled within Team Jian and confident that he could do his part on the battlefield, Simon often suffered bouts of anxiety about what the future held. The years of living in the shadow of his peers' talent and success had instilled him with deep-seated insecurities that troubled him even as he fought to suppress them with an attitude of cheerful acceptance for who he was. Although Camp Currahee employed several ONI-trained psychologists in order to deal with problems such as these, Simon avoided bringing his anxieties to their attention and instead chose to confide in Tom, with whom he had maintained a trusting relationship over the years of training. Simon also found an outlet in Tom's fellow Beta Company survivor, Lucy-B091. Though other trainees mocked Simon for his one-sided conversations with the mute instructor, Simon developed a strange rapport with Lucy, who few other trainees had taken the time to know on a personal level. Though his doubts and anxieties remained, Simon focused his mind on the exercises at hand as the final phase of Gamma Company's training drew near. When the time for the trainees to receive the chemical augmentations that would improve their combat abilities and complete their transformation into Spartans, Lieutenant Ambrose made a point of emphasizing the danger that the procedure entailed and gave every trainee the opportunity to back out of the program. Despite his failings and private doubts, Simon found the idea of abandoning his family within Gamma Company unthinkable. Simon and the rest of the company were taken to a medical facility aboard the . There they were injected with the : *Drug 8942-LQ99: A carbide ceramic ossification catalyst to make skeletons virtually unbreakable. *Drug 88005-MX77: A fibroid muscular protein complex that boosted muscle density and strength. *Drug 88947-OP24: A retina-inversion stabilizer drug. It boosted color and night vision capabilities. *Drug 87556-UD61: Improved colloidal neural disunification solution, which in turn decreased reaction time. Aside from the standardized enhancements, the trainees of Gamma Company would be the only Spartans to ever be augmented with compound 009762-OO. This mutagen altered key regions of the subjects' frontal brain lobes, enhancing aggression, strength, endurance, and tolerance to injury. Lieutenant Ambrose had personally authorized the use of the illegal drug in the hopes of increasing the Gammas chances of survival on the battlefield; however, the mutagen's effects were known to increase in response to stress, driving the Spartans into animalistic, instinct-driven states unless suppressed by the proper counter-drugs. Though he was completely oblivious to the chemical's implications, Simon would encounter the true potency of the brain enhancement in the years following the augmentation. Like the rest of the Spartans, Simon's body benefited greatly from the augmentations, but he emerged from the augmentations unsure of how to view the permanent changes that he had been subjected to. He was shipped back to Onyx with the rest of the company, where they spent a short period adjusting to their new bodies and perfecting the use of the newest models of their . While waiting for their coming deployment, every squad in the company competed against each other for "top honors" in a series of training skirmishes using non-lethal stun rounds. Although Team Jian did not make it far in the competition, they still did much better than what was expected of the "mongrel squad". When all but three teams had been eliminated, the rest of Gamma Company departed Onyx and readied themselves for war. Prior to Jian's departure, Simon met with Tom one last time. Proud of how far his low-scoring pupil had come, Tom gave Simon a combat dagger as a graduation present, which Simon proudly added to his combat load. Category:Actene Category:Simon-G294 Category:Gamma Company The Soldier "One of Me Against All of Them...Shit" "Don't Leave Me Behind!" Following the battle at Red Sea, Team Jian was rotated out of the Tantalus theater and deployed to the area of human space known informally as the "buffer territories." With the Covenant's military war machine coming closer and closer to discovering Earth's location, most Spartans were being moved away from the front lines in preparation for a wave of enemy offensives against the Inner Colonies. However, some of the more stubborn Insurrectionist factions were not content with sitting back while the battle for humanity's survival played out. Deployed to a known rebel staging area, Team Jian raided an encampment of rebels suspected of possessing stolen nuclear weapons. Simon himself killed three enemy fighters during the one-sided slaughter and though he had seen more than his share of combat at Red Sea he later confided in a sympathetic Cassandra that it felt strange to kill a fellow human being. The nukes were not at the camp, but Jian recovered data files that traced the weapons to the nearby colony of , a world known for its history of rebellion and insurrectionist sympathies. Jian was quickly redeployed to Mamore, where they set an ambush for the rebel convoy carrying the warheads. Cutting the convoy in half with hidden explosives, the young Spartans hijacked the warhead-bearing truck and one of the escorting it. But as they fled back to their landing zone, an explosion knocked Simon off the back of the Warthog and the pursuing rebels forced him into a ravine. Although his teammates tried to come to his rescue, the rebel's massive response force pushed them back. Over the team's objections and Simon's pleas over the radio not to be left behind, Jian was ordered to withdraw with the warheads to their waiting dropship. A terrified Simon could only flee deeper into the ravine as his friends took off without him, leaving him alone on a planet crawling with hostile rebels. The Orphan "First You Mug Me, Then You Want To Be Friends?" Marooned on an unstable colony teetering on the brink of full planetary insurrection, Simon knew that he lacked the ability to survive in such an environment on his own. Without a viable UNSC outpost in the region, he had no way of communicating with the military unless Team Jian came back in to recover him. Simon had not been outfitted for long-term survival and realized that he would have to make his way to a nearby town or risk starving to death. In order to hide his identity as a Spartan, he buried his armor and weapons in nearby cave before scavenging civilian clothes off rebels who had been killed during the firefight with Jian. Disguised as a regular--albeit ragged--civilian boy, Simon headed for the nearest population center, a town called Concord, in the hopes of finding food, water, and some way of contacting the UNSC. Upon arriving in Concord Simon found the poverty-stricken town overrun by the gangs of rebel militia who were waging war against Mamore's battered colonial garrison. Trusting no one, he spent several days by himself on Concord's dusty streets, fighting to come to terms with being cut off from his fellow Spartans and nursing a growing anger at Jian and their superiors for abandoning him. On his third day alone he was attacked by a gang of orphaned children who called themselves "Rat Pack". He easily fought them, impressing their leader, a street girl called Emily. She offered him a place in the group, but Simon scornfully refused, seeing the urchins and their behavior as being beneath him. Only after yet another fruitless day on his own did he relent and agree to join the band of orphans. He believed that Rat Pack would be a good cover while he worked to escape to a pro-UNSC settlement. In spite of himself, Simon quickly adapted to life back on the streets, a throwback to his life before the Spartan program. The urchins of Rat Pack made their home in the dried-up sewers beneath Concord, keeping clear of both Mamore's violent dust storms and the militia thugs who passed for law enforcement in the region. Though Concord's violent poverty reinforced Simon's trained contempt for the Insurrectionist cause, his conditioned faith in the UNSC was called into question more and more as he got to know the children who had taken him in. Most of them had lost their parents in the crossfire between the rebels and the colonial government; what's more, the children blamed much of their suffering on the government and the UEG policies many of Mamore's citizens felt were the root of Mamore's poverty. For his own part, Simon kept his identity hidden from Emily and the others and instead passed himself off as another victim of Mamore's broken infrastructure. . This ragtag band of orphans would replace the family he had found and lost in Team Jian.]] Still nursing the pain of Jian's perceived abandonment, Simon was drawn into Rat Pack's strange family dynamic. Though hunger and malnutrition began to eat at his physique, his augmented strength and speed made him an invaluable asset to the group's daily efforts to survive. The local militia hid much of its supplies in the Concord sewers and Simon took the lead with Emily in helping the children steal odds and ends from the rebel stores. The loss of both his position as a Spartan and the sense of purpose it had given him cut deeply, but as the weeks on Mamore began to turn into months, Simon began to open up more to Emily and the others in Rat Pack. The introverted failure Spartan accepted them as friends, though he never stopped waiting for a chance to make his escape and return to the UNSC. But as every passing day continued to expose him to the hard realities of Rat Pack's daily survival as well as civilian notions of childhood—notions that had been utterly denied to the Gamma Company trainees—Simon's convictions continued to be challenged and shaken. His anxieties came to a head when news reports on the began to trickle into Concord. Fueled by his duty and obligation to his fellow Spartan, Simon could not justify remaining on Mamore while his brothers and sisters fought and died to save humanity from the Covenant. After seeing news footage of Spartans fighting on Earth, Simon hatched a risky plan to steal a rebel Warthog and take his chances getting off-world. The night of his planned escape one of the Rat Pack children, Adam, was caught stealing from the militia and savagely beaten. Compelled by Emily to step in, Simon abandoned his plan and attacked the rebels holding Adam. Armed only with Tom's knife, Simon stunned Emily and the others by attacking the militia head-on; in the heat of battle he killed four grown soldiers and wounded several more. Furious, the rest of the thugs planned to kill Simon and his friends but were stopped by soldiers from the Humanity Liberation Front, an organized rebel faction seeking a foothold on Mamore. One of the HLF officers, an armored soldier named Redmond Venter, ordered the militia to stand down and personally executed those disobeyed. Following the incident, HLF soldiers took over rebel operations in Concord and—under Venter's orders—ensured that rations were given to Rat Pack and the rest of the town's homeless population. With his face now known to the rebels in the area and the HLF's tightened security, Simon resigned himself to remaining trapped on Mamore for the time being. Amazed at the ferocity with which he had killed Adam's attackers, Emily dubbed Simon "Stray"; the nickname stuck and before long Simon answered to it more readily than he did his own name. "It's Our Dirt" Stray was still roaming the streets of Concord when humanity emerged victorious from the , effectively ending the war against the Covenant. With the alien threat diminished and the UNSC in shambles, Mamore's dominant Insurrectionist factions seized at the opportunity they had been dreaming of for nearly a century: secession and independence from the UEG. With the weak and corrupt colonial government crippled the rebel factions united and seized control of the planet, declaring Mamore's independence. Knowing that UNSC reprisal was inevitable, the rebels began organizing every resource they could muster to defend the planet. Under the direction of the HLF, Concord's local militia groups found easy recruits in the Rat Pack orphans, using them as couriers and spare labor in exchange for extra rations while also teaching them the basics of soldiering—basics that Stray knew all too well. Unlike his Rat Pack friends and most of the adult insurgents, Stray was keenly aware of how brutally efficient the attacking UNSC forces would be when pitted against the poorly equipped rebels. But while he tried to draw his new family away from the war preparations, he found them gripped in the secessionist fervor that was sweeping across Mamore. Emily and the others were convinced that independence was the magic key that would help them escape their lives of hunger and poverty. Torn between his lingering duty to the UNSC and the bonds he shared with the orphans, Stray refused to abandon Rat Pack like Jian had abandoned him. Rather than seeking a way back to the UNSC or finding a way to undermine and sabotage the rebels—as would have been expected of a Spartan—Stray chose to stay with Rat Pack and hopefully shield them from the worst of the fighting to come. His hope was that the rebellion would be put down without much violence and that he would turn himself into the UNSC once Rat Pack was out of danger. But even with this optimistic future in mind, Stray couldn't help but wonder if he really wanted to return to life as a Spartan at all. The Rebel "We'll Make It Through This" The UNSC's campaign to quash the Mamore revolt began four months after the end of the Human-Covenant War when a small naval task force arrived in system and blockaded the planet. In the meantime, the planet's various factions had come to terms with each other and were united under the banner of the Insurrection and the ideal of an independent Mamore. But while public support for the Insurrection soared, the news of UNSC ships in orbit raised doubts about the Insurrection's ability to defend the planet. Nevertheless, new recruits from a population sick of UNSC ineffectiveness during the Human-Covenant War continued to swell the rebellion's ranks. From where Concord sat in the grand scheme of the escalating crisis, Stray had only a very basic grasp of what was unfolding. Now fully committed as child soldiers in service to the cause of Mamorian independence, he and the rest of Rat Pack spent their days hard at work constructing fortifications around Concord and doing whatever the adult rebels asked of them. By now the bonds he had formed with Emily and the other Rat Pack orphans were just as strong as the ones he had once held with Team Jian and though Stray had failed to draw them away from the rebel cause he was determined to keep them safe from the coming violence. One month after the naval task force arrived in orbit a ground force of and landed on the planet and assaulted several rebel hardpoints, securing landing zones for further UNSC forces and establishing forward operating bases in multiple regions. The battle for Mamore, dubbed Operation: UNION by the UNSC, had begun. The region around Concord was left relatively unscathed during the first weeks of the fighting. Stray and the rest of Rat Pack were sent out into the foothills surrounding the town in order to watch for signs of UNSC incursions. Occasionally vehicles carrying wounded or bedraggled Insurrectionist troops from other regions would arrive in Concord, their occupants telling stories of well-equipped UNSC forces overrunning position after rebel position. With his predictions of a one-sided slaughter coming true, Stray continued to try to draw Rat Pack away from the fighting. But when the war finally came to Concord, the Rat Pack orphans remained a staunch component of the rebels defense. Though the insurgents fought stubbornly against the invaders, their second-rate weapons and equipment were no match for the UNSC's mechanized military forces. Stray and Rat Pack were used to scout out enemy positions, plant improvised explosives, and even participate in a few ambushes of UNSC troops. At first Stray held back from engaging the Marines, focusing instead on keeping his friends alive, but after seeing one of the Rat Pack orphans fall to a sniper's bullet he realized that he couldn't protect his friends without fighting back. In the end, Stray's ultimate betrayal of the government that had raised and trained him as a soldier came far more easily than he could ever have imagined: he simply began applying his training against the Marines threatening his friends. Once that line was crossed, the once-loyal Spartan cast aside the last of his reservations about betraying the UNSC. Mamore was now his home and Rat Pack was his family; the same loyalties that had motivated him to fight for the UNSC now drove him to join the fight against it. By the time UNSC armored units arrived at Concord, Stray was fully committed to giving his all in the fight against them. The rebels defended Concord with the passion that was by now an indelible hallmark of Mamore's infamous secession; in spite of the UNSC's vastly superior force it took the Marines a full week of fighting street to street in order to capture the town. Emily and Simon led the Rat Pack through rubble and body-strewn streets and alleys as they darted from one firefight to the next, planting satchel charges on , ambushing fire teams, and leading rebel soldiers through the underground sewer systems that had been their home all this time. But in spite of Stray's excruciating efforts, the chaos of war swiftly took its toll on the orphans. Stray could only watch as UNSC and rebel shells obliterated his new home and his friends were cut down in storms of machine gun fire, killed by the same mechanized warfare that he had been raised to be part of. By the time Concord's rebel garrison surrendered, every one of the Rat Pack children save for Stray and Emily lay dead in their town's dusty streets. The two survivors fled through the war-torn streets and managed to slip through the UNSC's lines. They made their way into the foothills before collapsing from exhaustion and grief. With only each other for comfort and companionship, the two child soldiers constructed a small grave marker for Rat Pack with an abandoned assault rifle. A vengeful Emily was now firmly determined to find a way to fight on against the UNSC and Stray, adrift in a haze of confusion and grief, could only carry on trying to protect the last remnant of his urchin family as they set off across Mamore's war-torn plains. With the battle for Mamore still raging across the planet, Stray and Emily were easily overlooked by both sides of the conflict. Stray shared Emily's fury at the UNSC, clinging to the ideals of the Insurrection as he struggled to find meaning in the savage violence that had torn away the rest of his friends. He would not dream of abandoning Emily, but was torn between the urge to fight on and a growing fear of sharing Rat Pack's fate and becoming simply another shattered corpse amidst the mountain of dead Mamorians that grew larger by the day. In the end he gave up trying to sort out a drive of his own and simply allowed himself to be towed along after Emily as she fervently searched for more Insurrectionist forces to link up with. For the next month the two young fighters wandered from battle to battle, lending their guns to any militia band desperate enough to use children against the UNSC juggernaut. Though the gangs they joined were always swiftly cut to pieces by UNSC forces, Stray and Emily kept each other alive and always survived to fight another day. "This Is My War Now" Stray and Emily spent two months on their own, staying alive on the battlefields of Mamore and fighting the UNSC as best they could. Stray adapted the advanced survival skills drilled into him on Onyx in order to keep them fed and mobile. Despite their youth, he and Emily made an excellent team during raids on UNSC positions. Together they rigged explosives, sabotaged equipment, and stole supplies from any military target they encounters. Emily adapted quickly to life outside of Concord and Stray did his best to pass his own training onto her, though he still kept his true origins a secret. Even with his new-found willingness to wage open war on the UNSC, Stray's treason left him feeling aimless and confused. The only certainty in his life was Emily, the last of his Rat Pack family, and keeping alive and fighting became Stray's driving force amidst the chaos of war. The wandering saboteurs finally fell in with a detachment of rebel troops from the Humanity Liberation Front. The unit's field commander was Redmond Venter, the same officer who had witnessed Stray's attack on the militia back in Concord. Venter recognized the urchins at once and took them into his ranks. Venter saw the potential within his new recruits and quickly drew them into his inner circle. There Stray met Venter's lieutenant and close friend, a freighter turned rebel named Gavin Dunn. Gavin instantly took a shine to both of the young recruits but it was Venter who commanded Stray's full attention. The fierce and cunning warrior reminded Stray of his instructors on Onyx and he quickly came to admire Venter as both his commander and mentor. Through Venter and Dunn's guidance, Stray found purpose again not as an urchin trying to survive but as a soldier fighting whole-heartedly for the cause of Mamore's independence. Amongst Venter's ranks, Stray met another new figure: the "smart" AI known as Diana. Taking the two youths under his wing, Venter made a point of teaching Stray and Emily every technique he knew for surviving on the battlefield. A harsh but effective instructor, Venter was highly skilled in close quarters combat his proficiency with knives and unarmed techniques on to his young proteges. Stray had previously honed similar skills with Tom back on Onyx, but under Venter he learned a far more brutal way to apply his strength and speed in close combat. Living, fighting, and training with the rest of Venter's detachment, Stray and Emily remained close but they gradually spent less time together. Stray was drawn closer to Venter while Emily began spending time with Gavin Dunn, Venter's lieutenant and the more idealistic of the pair. As the HLF force continued to fight a guerrilla war against the UNSC, Stray began to see the imposing and reassuring Venter as the father figure he had never had in a life spent standing in the shadows of others' talents and achievements. Even as the UNSC continued to crush rebel resistance across Mamore, Stray experienced a new wave of commitment to the rebel cause; unlike his past drive to simply keep his friends alive, he now hoped to help create the free world that Emily, Gavin, and Venter were fighting for. Unbeknownst to anyone, the rebel AI Diana had taken a keen interest in Simon and was watching him closely. Though their conversations were far and few between, Diana had determined that there was something strange about him and was eager to learn more about the tenacious child soldier. Still fighting doubts about his role in the rebellion, Stray now put his dedication as a Spartan to full use as a tool in the service of the Insurrection. All Spartans were trained to consider themselves vital parts of the war effort and they all shouldered the enormous responsibility for humanity's survival in the battle against the Covenant. Plunged into a much different war, Stray simply re-purposed his conditioning and reasserted his identity as a supersoldier. When the HLF force passed through the site where Team Jian had left him stranded on Mamore, Stray revisited the cave where he had first taken refuge and recovered the SPI armor he had left there. Presenting the armor to Venter and Dunn, he revealed the truth about his past as a Spartan in the hopes that he could do more for the rebellion if he was considered more than just a fit and talented child recruit. Gavin was stunned to learn that one of the UNSC's famous supersoldiers was in their midst and even more shocked that the UNSC had trained and augmented children to be its soldiers. Venter quickly realized the potential he had stumbled across in discovering the only known Spartan to turn on his former commanders and join the rebellion. Stray's willingness to expose himself and the time he had already spent in the rebellion gave Venter little cause to doubt Stray, but others among the HLF were afraid and mistrustful of the exposed supersoldier. In his hope to expand his potential as a soldier of the Insurrection, Stray had miscalculated how deeply his revelation might cut those closest to him. Suddenly wary of the boy she had thought was just another war orphan, Emily kept her distance from Stray as rumors about his true loyalties circulated amongst the rebels. With his soldiers pressuring him to either execute Stray or turn him over as a prisoner to their HLF superiors, Venter instead arranged for the Spartan to prove his conviction by executing a Marine officer captured during an ambush. Fueled by a desire to prove himself to the doubting rebels, his own anger at the destruction the UNSC had brought to Mamore, and personal loyalty to Venter, Stray gunned the captive down. Although Gavin Dunn and a few others were made uncomfortable by Venter's loyalty test, the execution assuaged the doubts of most rebels. Stray himself found that while the killing had solidified his new position as the rebels' secret weapon it had intensified—rather than assuaged—his own private doubts about what he was truly fighting for. Urged on by Dunn, Emily later approached him and they reconciled, though Stray feared that the familial bonds he had shared with her could never be the same. In recognition of his new place in the rebel cause, Venter presented Stray with one of his own custom-made combat machetes and assured him of his value to the fight for Mamore's independence. The AI Diana also took a greater interest in Stray and began engineering situations where she could talk to him in private. Though Stray was wary of the rebel intelligence, she quickly picked up on his misgivings and probed deeper, quietly expanding their acquaintanceship as Stray began to undertake more dangerous missions for the HLF. Shortly after the execution, Venter's forces took part in the Insurrection's last concerted offensive on Mamore. In a coordinated effort to divert UNSC forces so that key units could regroup and consolidate themselves, dozens of groups like Venter's were ordered to intensify their attacks on government troops. Over the course of several days Stray raided and sabotaged key targets in order to soften them up for Venter's main force to attack. Though the attacks succeeded in drawing UNSC troops away from the retreating rebels, Venter's forces suffered heavy casualties as they were hunted and hemmed in by the troops they were drawing in. Refusing to sacrifice his remaining fighters, Venter chose to break off and fall back to the HLF's last remaining stronghold on Mamore. But the pursuing forces continued harrowing the weakened attack force and it ended up trapped between mountains crawling with Marine platoons and a small, UNSC-occupied town. Needing a distraction to divert UNSC forces and give his own troops an avenue of escape, Venter called for a volunteer to carry out a bombing within the town—a common opening to insurrectionist offensives that would certainly prompt the town's garrison to call reinforcements from the surrounding area. Tired of watching her friends and comrades die around her, Emily volunteered in the hopes of becoming a martyr in the fight for Mamore's freedom. Torn between loyalty to Venter and his friendship with Emily, a distraught Stray did everything he could to dissuade her from the mission. When he couldn't change her mind he even considered shooting her to prevent the attack and the carnage that would come of it, but in the end he couldn't bring himself to kill the friend who had come to mean so much to him. In the ensuing attack, Emily killed herself along with nearly a hundred others, Marines and civilians alike. The town's garrison commander panicked as expected, calling in reinforcements and letting Venter's troops retreat to safety. Stray was utterly devastated by the death of the last of Rat Pack. The rest of his friends had died at the hands of the UNSC, but Emily had killed herself on the orders of the man he had trusted and idolized. Suddenly alienated from Venter and the cause he had given himself over to, Stray found himself alone and helpless amidst the ongoing insurgency. Category:Actene Category:Simon-G294 Category:Gamma Company Treason With Simon's faith in Venter completely undermined, Diana seized on the opportunity to influence him. A highly advanced experimental AI, Diana had eroded any loyalty programming that might have once shackled her to any cause other than her own amusement. She had grown bored with Venter's lost cause and began probing his conflicted pupil, letting on that she knew more about Simon's past than he was telling Venter. Simon, isolated and desperate for anyone to confide in, eventually buckled under her teasing interrogations and told her everything about himself and the SPARTAN-III program. Diana immediately decided to remove Simon from Venter's influence so that she could "observe" his behavior without interference. With the war on Mamore all but over, Venter abandoned his guerrilla campaign and attempted to link up with other rebel forces. When they passed through the region where Simon had first been stranded by his team, he took the chance to retrieve his armor and, at Diana's urging, reveal his past and the existence of the Spartan program to Venter and Dunn. Delighted by the revelation that he had swayed the loyalty of one of the government's rumored supersoldiers, Venter took blood samples and gathered information from Simon in the hopes that the HLF could create a commando program of their own. Meanwhile, Diana preyed on Venter's role in Emily's death to turn Simon against his mentor. Already feeling betrayed by Venter's interest in recreating the Spartan program rather than decrying it as a war crime, Simon began to loath the rebel with a passion. Having now witnessed the deaths of child soldiers serving both the UNSC and the insurrection, he resented the government and rebels for sacrificing his own peace and well being for their own ends. Frightened by the idea that his life no longer had any meaning away from the battlefield, Simon resolved to kill Venter to avenge Emily before turning his back on both sides of the war permanently. But before Simon and Diana could turn on Venter, the UNSC ambushed the mountain compound where the HLF forces were holed up. With air strikes ripping the external fortifications to pieces while Marine assault teams stormed the base's interior, Simon hastily donned his armor and retrieved Diana's memory crystal chip before desperately making a run for one of several Slipsace capable transports that were stowed in hangars beneath the facility. He hoped to ambush Venter and steal his shuttle, but before he could reach the hangar he came face to face with the surviving members of his old squad, Team Jian. Initially happy to see a teammate they had thought was dead, the other Spartans quickly deduced that Simon was with the rebels and pursued him through the facility's crumbling tunnels. Now completely terrified, Simon barely kept ahead of his former friends until a collapsing tunnel cut them off. Only Jake, his team leader, managed to wriggle through the collapse to continue the pursuit. He finally confronted Simon in the antechamber just outside the hangar where he angrily demanded to know why Simon had betrayed them. Although Simon tried to explain himself, the ease with which his friends had turned on him infuriated him and he angrily denounced Jake for his blind loyalty to the government. In the fight that ensued, both Spartans were severely injured, using firearms and explosives against each other before descending into a brutal knife fight that ended only when the ceiling itself collapsed on top of them. Jake vanished beneath the rubble while Simon dragged himself into the hangar. Simon was fortunate to find the shuttle still at rest in the hangar. Loading Diana into the ship's computer, he staggered back out to prep the ship for launch. There he encountered Cassandra-G006 who had entered the hangar unnoticed. Like Simon, the medic had also begun to question the nature of the program that had turned them into instruments of war. Unwilling to abandon her remaining friends, she instead offered to help Simon and asked him to surrender peacefully with the promise that she would protect him. A weakened and distraught Simon was close to laying down his weapons when they were interrupted by Venter's arrival in the hangar. The rebel commander shot Cassandra through the shoulder before taking her prisoner and hauling her aboard the ship and ordering Simon and Diana to take off. Still thinking that Simon was loyal to him, Venter hoped that they could use Cassandra as a hostage to escape Mamore without being shot down. As the shuttle entered the atmosphere, Simon finally turned on his mentor. Although he attacked Venter ferociously, his injuries allowed the skilled fighter to quickly gain the upper hand. Simon would have been killed had not Cassandra stepped in to fight as well. Although Venter succeeded in incapacitating Cassandra with a well-aimed burst of machine gun fire, Simon forced him into one of the shuttle's escape pods and sent him hurtling back towards Mamore's surface. With Cassandra unconscious and a UNSC bearing down on them, Simon had Diana make a hasty Slipspace jump while he tended to Cassandra's wounds. Safely within Slipspace, Simon was finally away from everything: Mamore, the insurrection, the UNSC, and Spartans. As he treated his own wounds, he realized how empty he felt. He had lost not only his friends but any cause that he could believe in or fight for. Aside from a lingering hatred for Venter, the only thing he could feel was relief at surviving yet another battle. Although Diana urged him to restrain the sleeping Cassandra, he refused to do so and soon fell asleep himself. He awoke several hours later to find her re-bandaging both of their wounds. After a moment of tension, both Spartans admitted that they were tired of fighting. They spent the next few hours simply talking to each other, rekindling the friendship they had had during their time together in Jian. In the meantime, Diana discovered that the shuttle's Slipspace drive was at risk of overloading and destroying the ship. Making an emergency abortion of the Slipspace jump, the shuttle emerged in a sector of deep space that was nowhere near any inhabited planets. With no way to fix the Slipspace drive, they were effectively stranded until Diana could reach the nearest settlement with the ship's regular engines or until another ship discovered them. Diana advised Simon to put himself and Cassandra into cryosleep indefinitely until they encountered civilization again. With little other choice, Simon and Cassandra agreed to this plan. Both young Spartans accessed the ship's cryo-bay and entered the deep sleep of suspended animation while Diana remained active as the ship's pilot. Category:Actene Category:Simon-G294 Category:Gamma Company The Exile 's regarding SPARTAN-IIIs.}} Awakening After over two years of cryo-sleep, Simon was abruptly awakened by Diana, who cryptically stated that she "needed" him. Against the AI's wishes, Simon unfroze Cassandra as well rather than risk losing her to the run-down shuttle's occasional power surges. Both Spartans immediately realized that their temporary truce could not last and remained uncertain of each other's intentions. While they kept a cautious distance from each other and took time to take inventory of their respective armor and equipment, Diana informed them both that they were near a habitable planet known as Hekate. Although Cassandra was eager to find human civilization, Simon feared reprisals from both the UNSC and the rebels and began making plans with Diana on how best to restrain his former teammate if necessary. Following assurance from Diana that they'd steer clear of civilization for the time being, Simon was surprised when Cassandra could not answer him when he asked if she wanted to return to the UNSC. Hoping in spite of himself that he had found a kindred spirit in his flight from the government, Simon relaxed his guard and opened up to his former teammate, probing her for details about Team Jian's activities after he'd been cut off on Mamore while she sought answers about his defection. Although they remained at an impasse ideologically, both Spartans came to trust each other enough that they agreed to work as a team once they reached Hekate. As the shuttle arrived in orbit around the icy planet, Diana picked up transmissions indicating a burgeoning human colony on the surface. She used the data she picked up to bring Simon and Cassandra up to speed on the galactic developments that had occurred during their absence. Simon remained worried about going anywhere near the government, particularly if ONI was still looking for him. But Diana directed them instead to the far side of the planet, where she claimed to have picked up unusual readings that she wanted the Spartans to investigate. Purgatory Rescue Conflagration Personality and Traits }} Mental Report }} Although Simon has managed to remain mentally stable in the face of a life of loss, pain, and betrayal, he has developed an extremely cynical view of both the galaxy and himself. Having spent his entire life—particularly his years in the hyper-competitive training environment on Onyx—at the bottom of the heap, he has had to struggle and fight for success of any kind. He is used to everyone being faster, stronger, or smarter than he is, and in spite of his own considerable intelligence is almost always willing to settle for less—both materiallyand morally. His self-image has been largely shaped by the perceptions of others, particularly those expressed by his fellow Gamma Company trainees on Onyx. In order to hide his insecurities, he has embraced the image of a deceitful, self-serving coward, pretending to revel in these traits while secretly loathing them. His professed disdain for other people and the galaxy in general actually hides his true feelings: that he himself can never have a place either in civilized society or with anyone else. He balances this self-loathing with healthy doses of self-pity and anger towards those who have used and wronged him in the past. This vindictive streak manifested itself in a variety of ways, from day to day resentment towards authority and people who got the better of him to an often self-destructive desire for revenge. In spite of his weak self-image and warped moral compass, Simon is capable, in spite of himself, of occasionally performing acts of kindness and even selflessness. Though his self-loathing tends to attribute most of these decisions to emotional selfishness, he nevertheless despises injustice and his own experience of being used as an expendable pawn sometimes pushes him into risking his own safety to help those who are often ignored by the rest of the galaxy. Although his less admirable traits often win out, his conscience will sometimes get the better of him when he is influenced by the right people. He is also viciously stubborn and will tenaciously endure pain and adversity if sufficiently roused. His intelligence and deviousness have helped him to escape many potentially lethal situations; life on the fringe has molded him into a cunning and inventive fighter, making him far more proficient a combatant than those familiar with his abysmal training record might expect. Relationships "Stray" Appearance During his early life, Simon’s head was always covered by a tangled mop of dirty black hair. When he entered the SPARTAN-III program it was shaved off so as to conform with military regulations, but after deserting he grew his hair out again as a sign of defiance and was rarely motivated to groom it throughout the rest of his career. Simon has always been a scrawny individual, even during times when he is well fed. His training and augmentations surprisingly did little to change this trait; as one of the shortest Spartans in Gamma Company, he earned a variety of nicknames such as "Runt" and "Shorty." His small stature allows him to often pass unnoticed as a Spartan when not in armor, and even then he is noticeably shorter than even many non-augmented humans. Simon’s body is covered with scars inflicted over his life of brutal training and combat. His back in particular is heavily scarred by punishments he received during his time as a slave to Jiralhanae pirates, marking him as living property to anyone familiar with the Jiralahanae and their customs. His torso and left arm sport several tattoos, including one depicting the Spartan eagle insignia and several images popular among insurrectionist groups. When not clad in his modified SPI armor, Simon generally dresses in a ragged, patchy overcoat and underclothes of similar quality. Like most Spartans, his skin is very pale from spending so much time inside his armor. Equipment Weapons From his first combat exercises using firearms Simon was a notoriously poor shot, nearly flunking almost all accuracy tests with weapons such as the M392 DMR, the Battle Rifle and the various sniper rifle systems. He performed slightly better with such mid to close ranged systems as the MA5 series assault rifle and various submachine guns and carbines and these became his weapons of choice during his deployments with Team Jian during the Human-Covenant War. While fighting with the Insurrection on Mamore, Simon often used the outdated AR-74, a staple of Insurrectionist forces throughout the galaxy. Forced to adapt and survive without the benefit of the advanced equipment and support many Spartans had gone used to, Simon underwent a metamorphosis amidst the carnage of the uprising. The scarred and battered Stray that emerged from Mamore was a far more lethal combatant than the boy most Gamma Spartans had known, a fact that he proved when he killed Ralph-G299. Following the death of his former teammate Simon appropriated Ralph's and would wield it as his weapon of choice, proving time and time again the lethal versatility of the aging but dependable weapon. While capable with his shotgun, Simon's true talent lies in the brutal confines of hand to hand combat. He has always had a penchant for knives, a trait that was recognized and encouraged by his instructor Tom-B292. Redmond Venter's tutelage expanded Simon's skill with the weapon; together, they developed a unique form of close quarters combat intended to fight larger and stronger opponents such as Sangheili warriors or even -armored Spartans. During Simon's time in exile with Cassandra-G006, his fellow Spartan helped improve his accuracy with sidearms and he often wields a pistol in tandem with a combat knife. His time working with Sangheili such as Tuka 'Refum has given him a working knowledge of Covenant weapons systems, particularly the compact and deadly Sangheili . Simon is also known for employing a wide range of and EMP grenades to disorient enemies and level the playing field against better-equipped opponents. He was known for having a knack for explosives even during training, and on several occasions he has used remote charges to devastating effect against enemy forces, hard points, and even warships. Armor Simon has always favored the Semi Powered Infiltration armor that was standard issue for SPARTAN-IIIs during the Human-Covenant War. After he became stranded on Mamore he hid his armor to avoid detection by Insurrectionist forces, but would retrieve it after revealing his identity as a Spartan to Redmond Venter. The armor has been badly damaged time and time again while in Simon's possession and thus is an inelegant patchwork of refurbished and scavenged replacement parts. Despite the armor's age, Simon has outfitted it with a plethora of additional features in an effort to give himself every possible edge against his opponents. In addition to the equipment he carries in pouches and on the combat harnesses slung across the armor's frame, the suit features several hidden compartments for concealing knives and other weapons. The gauntlets have been upgraded to feature Sangheili-style as well as micromagnets linked to his weapons for quick retrieval. Simon also utilizes a unique set of to distract his enemies during the heat of combat. Designed by Diana after her extended exposure to Covenant and Forerunner technology, the drones project full-sized, life-like holograms of whatever the semi-intelligent subroutines Diana instilled in them are ordered to create. Furthermore, they emit a wide range of noises at varying decibels to further mimic real individuals and can generate complex heat signatures to prevent the deception from being detected by sensors. Quotes Gallery File:Simon_Rebel3.jpg|Simon-G294 as a rebel soldier on Mamore. The intense fighting there served to solidify his hatred for the UNSC. File:Simon_photo.jpg|A battered photograph recovered from Mamore by Office of Naval Intelligence investigators. The child soldier pictured is believed to be Simon-G294. When confronted with the evidence of his actions against the UNSC, many of his former SPARTAN-III comrades found him to be nearly unrecognizable. File:Simon_knife.png|Simon would always carry a plethora of small weapons and explosives with him into combat. Related Articles *Team Jian *Diana *Cassandra-G006 *Redmond Venter Related Literary Works *Halo: Paths of the Exiles--Fate of the Exiles, Traitor's Path, and Traitor's Destiny *Halo: Descent *Halo: Avenger's Quest *Halo: Indelible Past *Halo: Avenger's Reckoning Behind the Scenes *Simon was Actene's first character on Halo Fanon *Since Actene is a terrible brow-beater when it comes to thinking of names for his characters, the name Simon was taken from The Lord of the Flies which Actene was reading at the time. Simon-G294 bears little or no resemblance to the boy from the novel. *A growing list of tropes associated with this character can be found here. Development Notes Category:Actene Category:Simon-G294 Category:Gamma Company